Host Martha MacCallum all but begged the Trump campaign to up its game.

In case you missed it, sleazebag Corey Lewandowski just rejoined the Trump campaign. You may recall that Lewandowski was fired from Trump’s 2016 campaign and his 2020 campaign.

The Daily Beast explains:

Lewandowski has been in and out of Trump’s orbit, being dropped before the general election in 2016 after he was caught on camera allegedly assaulting reporter Michelle Fields. Then in 2020, Trump brought him back as the head of the Make America Great Again Action super PAC. Lewandowski, again, had to take a backseat when rumors broke that he had slept with Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD) and made sexual advances and groped a Trump donor at an event, according to the Washington Post.

As I wrote in 2016, there have been many other reported incidents of [Lewandowski’s] thuggish, brutish, sexist behavior, including late-night booty calls to female reporters, “often not sounding entirely sober.” In 2017, Joy Villa filed sexual assault charges against him for twice slapping her on the buttocks.

Not surprisingly, Fox News host Martha MacCallum mentioned none of that, even as she voiced concern about the Trump campaign’s need to appeal to more women.

MacCallum spent most of her nearly 10-minute interview with Lewandowski pleading with the campaign to change course: “There are some questioning the direction of the Trump campaign right now, so we’ll see if there are changes or if they're going to stick to that script,” MacCallum said in the introduction to the interview.

Lewandowski said he joined the 2024 campaign as an “addition,” i.e. not to replace the current leadership. But he also said he was there “in a full capacity to help bring this campaign to a winning, successful election day in early November.” Similarly, he said, “I believe” there will be no change at the top.

Personally, I don’t care who Trump has working on his campaign or not. In any event, the problem with the floundering campaign is the candidate. Actually, let me make that plural: the candidates.

MacCallum sent that message to the network’s biggest fan. She asked pointedly, “People have, you know, said that he's been rambling, and some of his recent speeches, he's getting criticized for that. Is he off his game right now?”

Lewandowski said Trump is "not off his game,” then embarked on a long tear against Kamala Harris.

But afterward, MacCallum began criticizing the campaign. “There’s criticism about how nimble this team, the current team, has been about, you know, ads and punching back against the vice president and being effective quickly, that there's been this sort of pause in the response. Do you agree with that? And is that part of what you hope to fix?” she “asked.”

Lewandowski defended the team as having been “very strategic.” He continued by saying “the president,” i.e. former President Trump, will be on the road all next week. “He wants to be in front of people. He wants to be talking to people, and he wants to lay out his vision for America,” Lewandowski added.

MacCallum interrupted to cite a Wall Street Journal article saying, “enough with the rallies. You know, they're a comfortable environment for him, but he needs to get to town halls with undecided voters and swing states. Is that something that we will see in the next week or so, the next several weeks?”

Lewandowski replied, “I think you will.” He followed up with more predictions about Trump’s upcoming successes on the campaign trail.

Then MacCallum made her play for Vance to be replaced by Nikki Haley. Noting that Harris leads Trump by 17 points among female voters in the crucial swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, she asked, “So what is [Trump] going to do specifically to work on women voters? And you know, would Nikki Haley have helped him a lot with this group if the choice had been her?”

Sorry, Martha, but bringing a guy like Lewandowski back into the campaign is a clear signal Trump is not focused on appealing to women.

But MAGA trooper that he is, Lewandowski said “we have an incredible surrogate operation.” He named Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Rep. Elise Stefanik as part of “a whole bunch of women who are prepared and ready and able and will be hitting the campaign trail.”

MacCallum’s last question was whether Lewandowski had been brought in to do any kind of “forensic review” of the campaign’s finances. I do not know what she was referring to but – to put it mildly – I would not be at all shocked if there’s some financial hanky-panky going on, including by Trump himself.

You can watch MacCallum join the Fox chorus imploring Trump to be a better candidate below, from the August 16, 2024 The Story with Martha MacCallum.